The Legal Geography of Housebuilding Antonia Layard (Funded by an ESRC Grant on Localism, Law & Governance)

‘I imagine if we were all assembled again in 10 years’ time we’d still be talking about the challenge of making sure that our housing supply kept up with housing demand and we’re all legislators here and we all have a responsibility to the next generation.’

On top of this we’re also pulling out all the stops to get Britain building, having already delivered 170,000 new affordable homes since 2010, with further plans that will lead to the fastest rate of affordable housebuilding for 2 decades.

The ‘God trick’

Who are the actors? National Government Local Authorities Neighbourhoods Individuals (with legal personality)

Re-scaling and re-hierarchisation Cala Homes litigation “This decision may result in developers challenging unfavourable planning decisions where the abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies was given undue weight or wrongly taken into account as a material consideration. If you believe you are affected by this decision, contact us.”

NPPF – ‘guidance’ (material consideration); ‘golden thread’; 5 year + buffer land plans (boost significantly)

Fox Strategic Land and Property v Cheshire East Council [2014] PAD 4

Stratford upon Avon DC v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (JS Bloor (Tewksbury) Ltd [2014] JPL 104

Calling In ‘Strategic’ ‘More than local’

The results of deconstruction politics are serious. Postmodernism celebrates its lack of global vision. The postmodernists defend their position with the claim, "But there are no Grand Narratives." However, the opposition is not playing that game. It has belief systems, meta-narratives that allow theories of power, of action. When we look around, everyone else is operating as if there were Grand Narratives. Joel Handler, Presidential Address to the Law and Society Association, 1992

Despite comprehensive planning legislation, over the past 40 years governments have become increasingly dependent on the private sector to initiate development. That explains why more market-orientated forms of planning can be traced back at least to the early 1980s, when government circulars on housing land release began to reflect the interests of those in the private sector responsible for housing production. In this sense, increased concern with market signals within planning policy is not entirely new, but rather represents the most recent capture of the relevant technical agenda by development interests. (Adams, 2011) Regulatory Capture?

Solutions? Need to conceptualise “housebuilding companies as profit seeking organisations with a diverse range of objectives, the most crucial of those being the survival of the organisation itself” (Karadimitriou, 2013) Recognise market is socially constructed (Adams & Tiesdell, 2010) Contracts/planning Tax (BTL, SDLT, AET and NHB/Help to Buy) Bottom line = profitability

Barratt has seen its share price increase 23% since the start of the year as it, along with the other U.K. house builders, has benefited from the U.K. government's "Help to Buy" and "Funding for Lending" schemes. It was last in the top index between June and December (Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2014)

Repeat Players ‘repeat players’ have “distinct advantages: Briefly, these advantages include: ability to structure the transaction; expertise, economies of scale, low start-up costs; informal relations with institutional incumbents; bargaining credibility; ability to adopt optimal strategies; ability to play for rules in both political forums and in litigation itself by litigation strategy and settlement policy; and ability to invest to secure penetration of favorable rules” Mark Galanter, “Why the haves come out ahead” 1974/5.